The New Favorite: Taco Rice!

Rice with taco filling and black-olive garnish, shredded lettuce, chopped tomatoes, avocado cubes with lemon and salt.

The Taco Rice tastes just as good as it looks. Thanks so much to JustBento for the inspiration. The kids begged me to send it again, and mom and dad loved it, too. It's my new standby! Even better, it was easy to make a lot of it, then freeze it in portions and just heat it in the morning. We made ours with beef, but you could easily make it with tofu, or tempeh, or black beans, or whatever your family likes. Keep in mind that tofu gets sort of tough and crumbly after it has been frozen, sort of like ground beef, so that would work well with this particular dish.

I had cooked a 5# chub of beef on a cookie sheet in the oven, then put most of it into a ziplock bag before making the taco topping. If you are using ground beef, be sure to drain off all the grease. I separated the grease from the broth and put the broth back into the taco meat. For real tacos, you want the filling somewhat dry so it doesn't drip, but for taco rice, the filling should be wet to help flavor the rice. Wet filling also freezes into more solid blocks. (See my attempt at a recipe below.)

After everything was prepared, I put the bag of ground beef on one side of a clean cookie sheet and portioned the taco topping into the liners on the other side. The only way to cook three meals a day while working is to be efficient in the kitchen. Prefer foods that can be cooked in quantity and put aside for later meals. (Now that I work from home, I have time to cook and to blog about it. Before, I just worked and cooked.)

Once the blocks are frozen, peel off the liners and put the blocks into a bag in the freezer. I made 10 blocks--that's 5 lunches! In the morning, simply reheat as many blocks as you need while you warm the rice. I like this lunch because fellow diners seldom remark "yuck" to tacos--the envy factor is pretty high.

Bag o' beef and lots of little cups of taco topping waiting to go into the freezer.

If you have kids who like different kinds of food, the freezer stash can make it possible to prepare two different lunches with little extra trouble. I already freeze hummus and taco topping, and am thinking of other foods that would freeze well. Teriyaki chicken and green beans? Black bean chili? Macaroni and cheese? If you have an idea about what might be kept in the freezer, please share!

Bento Mom's Taco Meat

one pound cooked ground beef, well drained, broth reserved
one diced onion
one clove garlic, crushed
~one Tbsp ground cumin
~one tsp crushed oregano
~two tsp paprika
~one cup leftover tomatillo salsa
the secret ingredient: one squirt of catsup
(optional: one cup cooked black beans)
salt to taste

Fry the onion and garlic; add the meat and seasonings, plus the reserved broth and a squirt of catsup. Add salsa or water to make it moist; there should be liquid in the bottom of the skillet. Put the lid on, turn the heat down, and let everyone get used to each other. Adjust the seasoning to your own taste. If you don't have tomatillo salsa, add regular salsa, or cilantro, or chipotles in adobo, or just look up a real recipe This is the internet, after all.